Solder popping off of leaf spring swtiches.

Alpha-tron

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So I am working on a Tron game. I tangles with it before.
The joystick would not move down.
So I popped it open. I found another loose wire. A Little sanding and some flux and the wire is nice and snuggle solid.
I put it back together and now it won't fire.
Really?.
I take it off again check the trigger switch with the meter. I am getting 60 to 15 ohms out of a switch.
I take the switch apart, It a Leaf spring trigger switch. I clean the carbon between the contacts. I get a Nice zero ohm reading now. Who knew carbon was so resistive.

So I recheck the wires tug tug. Wire pop off the leaf spring. Really? It seems that the coating on the leaf spring is peeling off the copper underneath. More sanding and Soldering.

Now all the wires are now tight.

Test the control panel.. Now I can not go to the left.
Funny how carbon build up with play havoc with a leaf spring. 20 to 40 ohm before cleaning zero afterwards.

Now it plays correctly.

While I understand the Build up of carbon. I don't recall solder wires popping off of leaf spring switches. Maybe a bad plating job?

If I have any more issues I am just going to have to replace the leaf switches out a new set.

Has anyone else had wires with solder popping off of leaf spring switches? Was there a bad batch of them?

Just curious.
 
When the Solder popped off the leaf switch the metal underneath was bright and shiny almost like the solder stuck to coating of the leaf switch. Sanding fluxing and soldering. I tugged on the wires pretty hard I don't think they will come off but time will tell.
 
Sounds like they weren't soldered properly and there was a layer of flux under the solder. If it were a plating issue you should be able to feel the layer transistion with your fingernail if you scrape it across.
 
It was a plating issue because you could feel the difference between the plated area that was solder to compared to the area where the wire popped off. I wonder if excessive heat cause the plating to fail. Perhaps if time permits an experiment is in order.
 
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